Western Union (NYSE: WU) is reportedly courting MoneyGram International (NASDAQ: MGI) in a takeover bid that would combine two of the largest money-transfer companies in the U.S. Bloomberg first reported the rumors, citing an anonymous source, who said Western Union has made an offer, but that the target company has not yet decided on its response. Such an acquisition would remove Western Union's chief direct competitor in the U.S. money-transfer space at a time when it faces other threats to its business from digital payments companies such as Paypal (NASDAQ: PYPL).

Facebook and PayPal have made investments in Gojek, joining Google and Tencent among other high-profile technology firms that have backed the five-year-old Southeast Asian ride-hailing startup that also offers food delivery and mobile payments. Facebook, for which it is the first investment in an Indonesia-based firm, and PayPal did not disclose the size of their checks. Gojek told TechCrunch that Facebook and PayPal were participating in its ongoing Series F financing round, which brings it total raise-to-date to over $3 billion.

The increasing prevalence of artificial intelligence and 5G technology are threatening to drive up energy consumption, putting the technology sector on par with the aviation industry in the amount of CO-2 it releases, according to a leading researcher at Gartner.
While data centers, tasked with processing the world’s data, have made significant investments to reduce energy consumption over the last several years, David Cappuccio, Gartner VP of Research, says that dynamic is likely to shift dramatically with the growing use of analytics and machine learning.

A technical snafu in a U.S. government system caused many small businesses to receive loans twice or more under a federal aid program to help businesses hurt by the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly a dozen people with knowledge of the matter said. The money mistakenly handed out could amount to hundreds of millions of dollars that the government and lenders - which made the loans - have been trying to identify and recover in recent weeks, one of the people briefed on the matter said. The technical issue and scale of the resulting duplicate deposits made under the Small Business Administration's $660 billion (£526.02 billion) Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) have not been previously reported.

Since its humble origins about a decade ago, Square (NYSE: SQ) has evolved from a niche business that made it possible to accept credit card payments through mobile phones into an impressive financial ecosystem for businesses and consumers alike. Square's payment processing hardware now includes everything from its mobile readers to full-feature POS systems, and payment volume through its platform has climbed to more than $100 billion annually (and growing). It uses its merchant payment data to make business loans through its Square Capital business, and the company made 75,000 loans in the first quarter of 2020 alone.

Online sales have exploded during the coronavirus pandemic, as consumers try to stay home more. Online sales at Walmart, Target, and Best Buy in the first quarter increased by 74%, 141%, and 155%, respectively. Meanwhile, the 800-pound gorilla that is Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) continued its steady march, growing global online sales by 24% (Amazon's fiscal quarter ends a month before the other retailers mentioned).

Sentieo Data Show Google and Twitter Interest in Bitcoin Doubling So Far This Year Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have played a divisive role in the last few years, but recently, the interest has drawn a far wider investor base. Indeed, Paul Tudor Jones surprised Wall Street earlier this month when he revealed a significant […]

Warren Buffett likes 44 stocks plus two exchange-traded funds (ETFs) enough for them to be included in Berkshire Hathaway's (NYSE: BRK.A) (NYSE: BRK.B) portfolio. Of these 45 stocks, including Berkshire, I like five enough to own them in my investment portfolio. My favorite Buffett stock right now is... Mastercard (NYSE: MA).

In this episode of Industry Focus: Financials, host Jason Moser and Fool.com contributor Matt Frankel, CFP, take an in-depth look at the company and what investors need to know. Plus, hear Jason and Matt discuss why they're keeping an eye on Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) and Intuit (NASDAQ: INTU). To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool's free podcasts, check out our podcast center.

While there are no real winners in the COVID-19 pandemic, some companies are proving the merits of digital operations and growing their businesses at accelerated rates as families shelter-in-place and those employees who can work from home do so. PayPal Holdings (NASDAQ: PYPL) is a prime example. While incumbent digital payment processors Visa and Mastercard shares are still down by double-digit percentages from their all-time highs as they face a sharp near-term slowdown in growth, PayPal is surging to new all-time highs.